Wednesday, July 25, 2012

On
April 26 of this year, John Carter died in his solitary confinement
cell at State Correctional Institution (SCI) Rockview in central
Pennsylvania. According to accounts by other men imprisoned on his cell
block, Carter’s death followed a violent “cell extraction” in which
corrections officers used pepper spray and stun guns, though the
Pennsylvania Department of Corrections makes no mention of such actions
in its official statements, and state police have yet to interview
inmate eyewitnesses.

In 1995, John Carter took part in a robbery that resulted
in the murder of one man in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. He was sixteen at
the time, and was convicted of second-degree felony murder. In
Pennsylvania, which has more juvenile lifers than any other state, his
conviction meant a mandatory life sentence without the possibility of
parole. (Under the Supreme Court’s June 25 ruling, in Miller v. Alabama,
that mandatory life sentences without parole for juveniles were
unconstitutional, Carter would likely have had his sentence
reconsidered, had he lived to see the day.)

At some point during Carter’s sixteen-year imprisonment, he was placed on what’s called the Restricted Release List,
a form of indefinite solitary confinement that can only be ended with
approval by the Secretary of the Department of Corrections. Jeffrey
Rackovan, the Public Information Officer at SCI Rockview, admitted that
this designation meant John could have “spent the rest of his life in
solitary confinement.” Before his death Carter had spent the last ten to
eleven years in solitary. According to prisoner reports he had been
known to break the rules of his unit in order to share food, hygiene
items, and writing utensils with newcomers to his block, and adamantly
used both the grievance process and legal system to challenge acts of
abuse and retaliation by prison staff.

On April 27, the Pennsylvania Department of Corrections issued a press release
announcing that John Carter had been found “unresponsive in his cell”
the day before. Reports from the unit soon began to reach Carter’s
family and the Human Rights Coalition, a Pennsylvania-based prisoner
advocacy and abolitionist organization. The reports explained that
Carter had been subject to a cell extraction on the day of his death
after a dispute with guards who refused to issue him a food tray instead
of nutraloaf, a dense, unpalatable substance issued as punishment in
place of meals. The cell extraction was the second Carter had been
subjected to that week, during which guards entered his cell in full
riot gear, armed with OC spray and electroshock weapons.

The statements from prisoners explained a brutal scene,
with excessive amounts of pepper spray being pumped into Carter’s cell
so as to flood the whole tier with the choking gas. According to
prisoner accounts, guards then broke down the door to the cell and
proceeded to shock Carter seven times with electroshock shields and
guns. Many of the reports end with Carter being dragged from his cell,
paramedics arriving 10 to 15 minutes later, and an unresponsive Carter
being removed from the block. He was pronounced dead at Mount Nittany
Medical Center a short time later.

Andre Jacobs, a jailhouse lawyer housed on the same block as John wrote a five page declaration
detailing the events of that day. Many others sent in the story as they
heard and saw it, all of them asserting that John Carter was “murdered .
. . here in this RHU torture zone, where guards come on the tier
calling people racial slurs.”

The press statement released by the Department of
Corrections made no mention of a cell extraction, or any confrontation
at all occurring on the day of Carter’s death. Reports from inside the
prison claimed that superintendent Marirosa Lamas came to the Restricted
Housing Unit tier the night of John Carter’s death alleging that he had
committed suicide, an assertion never made to the public. But officials
first claimed that no cell extraction took place the day of Carter’s
death, then that there was an extraction but no video footage, and
finally that an extraction took place but the footage may have been
“damaged.”

Because Carter died from what was considered unnatural
causes, the Pennsylvania State Police were brought in to investigate his
death. By May 10th the police had released a statement that notes John
Carter was found “unresponsive in his cell,” but goes on to describe
that he had “barricaded himself in his cell and refused numerous orders”
which precipitated “the DOCs response to the inmate’s cell.” The
statement goes on the say that autopsy reports were “inconclusive” and
evidence had indicated “no foul play” in Carter’s death. Once again no
mention was made of the use of pepper spray or electroshock weapons.

Calls to the state police were met with the assurance that a
“thorough” investigation would be carried out. However, according to
statements from prisoners held on John Carter’s block, not one of them
was ever questioned as to the events of April 26.

Jeffrey Rackovan told Solitary Watch that the prison had
“done its part” in the investigation, handing over video footage and
allowing investigators to enter the prison. Rackovan noted that
investigators surely spoke to those they “needed to”–the “officers
involved in the extraction.” He also assured that John Carter’s cell had
been inspected, though numerous prisoner reports claim that it was
thoroughly cleaned shortly after Carter was removed.

According to advocates at the Human Rights Coalition, the
investigation carried out by the state police fits within a general
pattern of refusal by state authorities to investigate and prosecute the
alleged crimes of prison guards and officials against the prisoners in
their care. No statements have been made by the State Police since May
10. Toxicology reports from the coroner’s office are still forthcoming
more than two months after John Carter’s death.

John Carter’s family is not satisfied with the
investigation thus far and are resolved to find justice in his death.
They arranged for a second autopsy, and filed a criminal complaint with
the Center County District Attorney, Stacy Parks-Miller, in June. As a
response the DA’s office is now overseeing the investigation carried out
by the State Police, but has released no further information on its
progress. When contacted, Ms. Parks-Miller’s office would not respond
with any comment on the investigation.

John Carter’s sister, Michelle Williams, explained in a May
7 interview with me for Rustbelt Radio that she wants justice not only
for her family but for all of the other families with loved ones inside
of Pennsylvania prisons. “Just because they are in jail,” she
said, ”doesn’t mean you can treat them as anything else but human.”
Listen to the full radio report here.

Break the Chains.info

is a news and discussion forum for supporters of political prisoners, prisoners of war, politicized social prisoners, and victims of police and state intimidation.

This blog is organized and updated autonomously of the disbanded Break the Chains Prisoner Support Network formerly based in Eugene, Oregon. While this online project shares several of the same concerns as the old Break the Chains collective, no formal organization exists behind the current web presence.

"I will never surrender my pride and dignity nor allow the system to 'cut my tongue' and I will always, without fear, speak out against these war crimes and crimes against humanity, no matter if I spend the rest of my life in a prison cage, and draw my last breath of air laying down in this steel bed surrounded by razor-wire fences and cages, and its prison policies that are designed to destroy one's humanity…."